When will American people be told the truth about Iraq?

By Michael Goodwin

05/06/07 "Milwaukee Journal Sentinel " -- -- Now that President Bush and the Democrats have taken turns grandstanding over his veto of their troop withdrawal bill, it's time for a bipartisan burst of honesty.

Instead of haggling for political advantage, Bush and members of Congress should both confess that they have not been straight about the future in Iraq.

The president's promise to "complete the mission" is a triumph of a tired slogan over reality, just as the Dems' pledge to "end the war" is riddled with loopholes. It's time to cut the bull and be realistic about where we're going.

Start with Bush. While he blasted Dems again last Tuesday for demanding the start of troop withdrawal by Oct. 1 as a recipe for chaos, he has quietly accepted a de-facto deadline set by his own commander that is not much different.

Gen. David Petraeus said last week that he would decide in September whether the surge of added troops was working. Implicit in the commitment, which includes a public report to Congress, is that a lack of progress would doom the plan.

While it's not clear what Plan B is, it is certain the surge must pay dividends to continue past the fall.

"We think that's the appropriate time to make it," Petraeus said of his review. "It will be a time at which we will have had our additional forces on the ground for several months, all of them operating in the areas in which we intend to deploy them." If that isn't a deadline, I don't know what it is.

And Petraeus warned he would not be an easy grader. He will scrutinize everything from gains in the Iraqi army to progress on sharing oil revenue.

"Success, in the end, will depend on Iraqi actions," Petraeus said. "We can provide the Iraqis an opportunity, but they will have to exploit it."

Yet even if the surge fails, Democrats will not be delivering on their pledge to fully end the war.

Party leaders, and especially the gaggle of senators running for president, have made fanciful promises that sound as though the break would be instant, clean and complete. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), for example, said that, if Bush doesn't end the war, "As president, I will."

Ah, that depends on how you define "end." Clinton, like Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), voted for the withdrawal legislation, which includes four exceptions that could keep tens of thousands of troops in Iraq indefinitely.

Under this legislation, troops could remain for purposes of:

• Protecting American diplomatic facilities and American citizens, including members of the U.S. armed forces;

• Serving in roles consistent with customary diplomatic positions;

• Engaging in targeted special actions limited in duration and scope to killing or capturing members of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations with global reach;

• Training and equipping members of the Iraqi security forces.

Those are worthwhile commitments, but they are huge, especially when you add in support personnel. A major in the Marine Reserves, writing in The New York Times, said those functions would need 75,000 U.S. troops.

It's noteworthy that neither Clinton nor Obama has made a habit of citing their support for such numbers on the campaign trail.

At 75,000 strong, our force would be about half of what we have now, but still a long way from ending the war.

Indeed, the Marine major, Owen West, who has served two tours in Iraq, predicted that the 75,000 would be in Iraq at least until the fall of 2008.

That is when Americans will elect our next president. Surely by then, somebody will be forced to tell us the truth about Iraq.

Michael Goodwin is a columnist for the New York Daily News.